One day in June of 2006 a very special thing happened. For the first time ever, we invited a handful of developers to spend the day with us at Google celebrating what they had achieved with our Maps APIs. Our engineering team came all the way from the Sydney office to help answer questions from developers, and help them learn new ways to solve problems in the apps they were building.

What a difference a decade makes. We’re absolutely amazed with all that developers from around the world have created and changed since that day in 2006. We’ve enjoyed this journey with you, and as developers ourselves we continue to be excited by the challenges that lie ahead.

It was this thinking that drove us to bring I/O back to where it all started 10 years ago and to continue celebrating this developer journey we’re on together. We’re really excited for I/O 2016 and we hope this year’s festival, happening May 18-20 at Shoreline Amphitheatre, is just as special as that first gathering at Google back in 2006.

We know a lot has changed over the years and the opportunities (and challenges) are even greater today than they were back then. We’re gearing up for an I/O festival that will celebrate your accomplishments, answer your burning technical questions, and hopefully help make your life as a developer a little bit easier. We hope you can join us! Applications for attendance opened today and will remain open until 3/10, 5PM PST. And in the meantime, share your #love4dev back with us.